Chapter 804 — Riverless

CHAPTER 804

Riverless

The fourth wave rose behind Zhuge Wuyan until it blotted out the fog.

It was twice as tall as a man, and the water blades inside it ran so thick that the whole wave looked like black steel. The four pythons under the pool had finally woken. They lay flat against the bottom, not daring to move.

Zhuge Wuyan held his sword level.

“This one doesn’t stop,” Zhuge Wuyan said. “Yield, or step back to the bank.”

“I’m staying here,” Shi Feng said, watching the sword rather than the water.

His cuts stung and his boots were full of marsh water. That was the price of testing the tide rather than breaking through it. Now he had understood the fault in his footing, and he wanted to correct it before Zhuge Wuyan changed the current again.

The wave came.

Shi Feng watched the pool in front of it. Before the water rose, there was a push, the Cangming sword qi driving up from below and lifting everything in its path. The water only followed it. Three times he’d stood on the water, and three times the push had moved first and thrown him.

So this time he didn’t step on the water.

He stepped on the push.

His right foot came down where the sword qi was rising, a breath before the water got there. The force went up under his heel like a hand lifting him, and he let it. His left foot found the next push, higher up. The wave was still climbing behind him, and he was already above it.

Riverless Step stood on the current. At Perfection, it no longer needed the current to be water.

Riverless Step, Perfection.

On the bank, Yue Shaoan’s mouth fell open.

“He’s—he’s walking up the wave. No, he’s walking above it!”

“How’s he standing on nothing?” Hou Tieshou bellowed.

Jiao Lanyin said nothing at all. She’d lowered her bow without noticing.

Zhuge Wuyan’s expression changed for the first time. He looked up. Shi Feng stood a full man’s height above the crest of the fourth wave, with the grey fog around him and the black water rolling underneath.

The Cangming captain didn’t hesitate. He raised his sword, and the whole wave reared up between them like a shield.

Shi Feng lifted the grey Sword above his head with both hands.

The Falling Star Sword had one stroke, and it was very simple. The sword came down from above the head, straight, with nothing held back, the way a stone falls when someone lets go of it. At Entry, he could do it exactly once in a fight, and only when he had height and nothing between his blade and the ground.

He had both.

Shi Feng stopped forcing the blade downward and let its weight and qi fall together.

The grey Sword went through the top of the wave without slowing. Three hundred water blades burst apart into spray. Behind them, Zhuge Wuyan’s sword came up to meet it, flat and braced with both hands.

Boom!

The sound rolled across the whole marsh. Zhuge Wuyan’s knees bent. His boots, which had stood dry on the water all morning, went straight through the surface, and he sank to the shins. The sword in his hands bowed under the weight, and his stance broke.

The fourth wave lost its master. It fell back into the pool all at once, and black water washed over the banks on both sides and soaked the five Cangming swordsmen to the waist.

Shi Feng came down hard on the surface in front of him. He had no control left after that drop, and the pool took him in to the knees. The grey Sword rested on Zhuge Wuyan’s crossed blade, a finger’s width from his shoulder.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

The fog drifted. Water dripped from the reeds. Somewhere under the pool, a python shifted nervously and went still again.

“Late Deity Transformation,” a Cangming swordsman said hoarsely from the far bank. “He’s only late Deity Transformation. Senior Brother is peak.”

“Senior Brother lost? To a cook?” another one muttered.

“That was a Deity Transformation-grade sword art, and he walked over the top of it…”

“…”

Zhuge Wuyan lowered his sword slowly. He pulled his feet out of the water, one and then the other, and stood on the surface again. His long, serious face was pale, but it wasn’t angry.

“I lose,” Zhuge Wuyan said.

He said it clearly, so that his own banner could hear. Then he walked to the bank, picked up the pouch beside the melon-sized core and held it out with both hands.

“The nest is yours. My banner walks round,” Zhuge Wuyan said. “We won’t follow you through the marsh.”

“Senior Brother!” one of the swordsmen protested. “He’s half dead! If we all—”

“I gave my word,” Zhuge Wuyan said, without raising his voice.

The swordsman went red and said nothing more.

Shi Feng took the pouch and bowed.

“Thank you, Brother Zhuge,” Shi Feng said. “You kept the fight between us, and you kept your word afterward. I’ll remember both.”

Then he pressed a hand to his ribs and sat down on the tussock, because his legs had decided it was time.

Under the pool, the four Mist Pythons had stopped being afraid of the sword. They were uncoiling now, one after another, and they were hungry.